Playing fields at Salendine Nook have flooded once again.
And joker Jake Mangel-Wurzel, who lives at Peat Ponds overlooking the site off Laund Road, took to a rowing boat to highlight the extent of the flooding.
Jake said the playing fields had been inundated following heavy rain over the weekend. The flooding had abated a little since the weekend, but he added: “If it pours down tomorrow, it will spread to my place. I’m ready to start a boating lake and earn a bit of money!”
Residents and local councillors argue that the flooding relates to large-scale housing development at Lindley Moor. Hundreds of homes are being built in fields alongside Lindley Moor Road.
Officials at amateur rugby league club Lindley Swifts called for urgent action to tackle the issue after the Kirklees Council-owned playing fields were severely flooded last November.
Jake said following that incident, workmen dug a trench to channel rainwater from the playing fields into a large drain.
But he said on Monday that the 25-yard long trench had since been backfilled, leaving the rainwater with nowhere to go.
He said digging the trench was “the perfect thing to do” but said a permanent drainage pipe should have been laid before the trench was backfilled. “It would only take a morning’s work for a digger with a narrow shovel to dig the channel again.”
He added: “It doesn’t just spoil things for the footballers and rugby players, there’s a copse of trees where youngsters play and the flooding is deepest there.”
Gemma Wilson, Conservative councillor for Lindley, said she had referred the latest incident to council officers.
“It is something I have been speaking to the council about quite a few times,” she said. “This is an effect of the building which is spoiling the landscape for local people. There have been enormous problems with flooding but the views of local people don’t seem to be listened to.”
